Was the universe born spinning?

The universe was born spinning and continues to do so around a preferred axis – that is the bold conclusion of physicists in the US who have studied the rotation of more than 15,000 galaxies. While most cosmological theories have suggested that – on a large scale – the universe is the same in every direction, these recent findings suggest that the early universe was born spinning about a specific axis. If correct, this also means that the universe does not possess mirror symmetry, but rather has a preferred right or left "handedness".

Led by Michael Longo from the University of Michigan, the team had set out to test whether mirror symmetry, also referred to as "parity", was violated on the largest scales. If a particle violates parity, its mirror image would behave differently, and such particles can be described as right- or left-handed. Parity is violated in nuclear beta decays and there is a strong preference in nature for left-handed amino acids, rather than right-handed.

"To my knowledge, no-one had asked the question of whether the universe itself had a preference of say left-handed over right-handed. My idea was to test this by seeing if there was a preferred sense of rotation of spiral galaxies. At that time, I didn't quite appreciate that, if so, it meant that the entire universe would have a net angular momentum," explains Longo.

Galaxies in a spin

Longo and a team of five undergraduate students catalogued the rotation direction of 15,158 spiral galaxies with data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. They found that galaxies have a preferred direction of rotation – there was an excess of left-handed, or counter-clockwise, rotating spiral galaxies in the part of the sky toward the north pole of the Milky Way. The effect extended beyond 600 million light-years away.

The excess is small, about 7%, and Longo says that the chance that it could be a cosmic accident is something like one in a million. "If galaxies tend to spin in a certain direction, it means that the overall universe should have a rather large net angular momentum. Since angular momentum is conserved, it seems it [the universe] must have been "born" spinning."

What impact would this have on the Big Bang and how the universe was born? Observers in our universe could never see outside of it, so we cannot directly tell if the universe is spinning, in principle, explains Longo. "But if we could show that our universe still retains the initial angular momentum within its galaxies, it would be evidence that our universe exists within some larger space and it was born spinning relative to other universes," he told physicsworld.com. "I picture the Big Bang as being born with spin, just like a proton or electron has spin. As the universe expanded, the initial angular momentum would be spread among the bits of matter that we call galaxies, so that the galaxies now tend to spin in a preferred direction," he explained. When asked if the preferred spin on a large scale could be induced by some other means, he agrees that, while it may be possible, a net universal spin would be simplest explanation and so probably the best-case scenario.

Looking for 'other manifestations'

Longo also points out that the axis of asymmetry that they found is closely related to the alignments observed in WMAP cosmic microwave background distributions. He feels that it would be interesting to see if we could find "other manifestations" of a spinning universe.

The Sloan telescope is in New Mexico, and therefore the data that Longo's team analysed came mostly from the northern hemisphere of the sky. However, they did find a similar trend in the galaxy spin data from the southern hemisphere compiled by Masanori Iye and Hajime Sugai in 1991. Longo and his students are now looking through more data to show an equal excess of right-handed spiral galaxies in the southern hemisphere.

Neta Bahcall, an astrophysicist at Princeton University in the US, feels that there is no solid evidence for a rotating universe. "The directional spin of spiral galaxies may be impacted by other local gravitational effects," she said. She believes that this could result in small correlations in spin rotation over distances less than about 200 Mpc – whereas the observable universe is about 14 Gpc in size. She feels that the uncertainty quoted in the paper includes only the minimal statistical uncertainty and that no systematic uncertainties – such as local gravitational effects or the fact that galaxies are correlated with each other – have been considered.

Rotating Universe

Accumulating evidence for Double Torus Geometry.

Not for the first time I commented on artcles in PhysicsWorld about dark energy, dark matter and the Double Torus Geometry.Last time I commented the article about the determination of more dark energy than expected in the beginning of the universe. Now the spinning of the universe is determined. Such a discovery implies a flow of matter through a torus of dark matter in a rotational way. In combination with dark energy this is emerging a Double Torus Geometry. Such a universe replaces our perceptional world of the big bang. When is the PhysicsWorld-editorium willing and ready to publish information about the hypothesis of the Double Torus and all its features mentioned up to now. A lot of information can be found on my website (www.darkfieldnavigator.com), where also a press-release is available. I also am willing to be interviewed by Physicsworld about this subject based on the information in my website. Even the 'papers' in the dissident archive 'vixra' are available.Warm Regards,Dan Visser, Almere, the Netherlands (email: dan.visser@planet.nl for phone-number)

A galaxy is spinning clockwise or anticlockwise depends on you are looking from the top or from the bottom. How can we tell?

It's determined from helicity of the shape of spiral galaxies, rather than from actual direction of their rotation. At the case of eliptical galaxies we can say nothing very much about their helicity, indeed.

A galaxy is spinning clockwise or anticlockwise depends on you are looking from the top or from the bottom. How can we tell?

As Ragtime commented, we can infer the axis rotation from the orientation of the spiral arms. For nearby elliptical galaxies, we can use relative Doppler measurements around the perimeter, provided the axis is somewhat perpendicular to our line of sight.

When projected on the sky, you would not expect any preferred direction for the axes of rotation of many galaxies. Instead, what the work reported here seems to say is that those axes do have some common alignment.

These findings are in direct opposition to other studies by the GalaxyZoo crew regarding this exact same phenomenon. Some initial results from that project did suggest the possibility of a preferred handedness of galaxies; however, subsequent analysis of those results showed them to be inaccurate, and that there is indeed no preferred rotation direction. I would be interested to see the resolution of these two conflicting reports.

1 - Rotation is a form of motion.2 - Motion is relative.The universe is rotating relative to what, exactly? Please enlighten me.

Ah - well that's the problem. Linear motion is relative, but rotational motion isn't. It's easy to think that if you're sat on a spinning disc watching everything revolve around you that either the disk could be spinning or the surroundings could be spinning, but that's not true.

If something is spinning there is a centripetal force which is absolutely measurable - the surface of a spinning bucket of water for example will turn into a dish - and you can work out the rotational speed from the outward force. You can't hide or offset that by rotating the world around it.

So the concept of rotation doesn't involve a frame of reference. Several things might be rotating relative to each other but you can always work out an absolute speed for each one.

In a universe where 80% of the mass is attributed to dark matter, it seems reasonable to assume than the 7% of angular momemtum missing can also be attributed to a yet invisible matter.Isotropy and homogoneity are the generators of Hamiltonian mechanics and can not be altered without heavy consequences.

At the moment of creation ok! it was spinning it is even more likely to have been than not it would depend on what was creating it, maybe a vast void of nothingness but where did the vast void of nothing come from? well anyway it is best to work with what we have and i know for definite what we do have is super natural.

There goes any unified field theory

1 - Rotation is a form of motion.2 - Motion is relative.The universe is rotating relative to what, exactly? Please enlighten me.

Ah - well that's the problem. Linear motion is relative, but rotational motion isn't. It's easy to think that if you're sat on a spinning disc watching everything revolve around you that either the disk could be spinning or the surroundings could be spinning, but that's not true.

If something is spinning there is a centripetal force which is absolutely measurable - the surface of a spinning bucket of water for example will turn into a dish - and you can work out the rotational speed from the outward force. You can't hide or offset that by rotating the world around it.

So the concept of rotation doesn't involve a frame of reference. Several things might be rotating relative to each other but you can always work out an absolute speed for each one.

Galaxy Spin

Actually, the numbers were corrupted by members of 'Galaxy Zoo' because we all conspired to 'fudge' the results 'cos we all fancied 'Galaxy Babe' and wanted to get into her knickers...!...see what happens if you let the 'great unwashed' fiddle with 'scientific' data over the internet....(only joking!)..{apparently they want us to dechipher ancient Greek and Eygyptian tablets next..what fun..LOL!}

If something is spinning there is a centripetal force which is absolutely measurable - the surface of a spinning bucket of water for example will turn into a dish - and you can work out the rotational speed from the outward force. You can't hide or offset that by rotating the world around it.

would that imply that our universe will need some force to counteract the centrifugal force due to its rotation and keep it confined ?

If something is spinning there is a centripetal force which is absolutely measurable - the surface of a spinning bucket of water for example will turn into a dish - and you can work out the rotational speed from the outward force. You can't hide or offset that by rotating the world around it.

would that imply that our universe will need some force to counteract the centrifugal force due to its rotation and keep it confined ?

Help me! I have a hard time imagining a preferential axis of the universe. As a matter of fact what is meant by an axis of a "body" if the said body is infinite and thus there is no external reference? One thought that comes to my mind: if there are ways to make measurements(or computaions from measurements) around 'sample axes' chosen uniformly around 4 pi steradians and show spin-like momenta have non-zero net values around "one of them" then it becomes a bit clearer. Does that make sense?Would that be the kind of strategy followed by this set of researchers?

1 - Rotation is a form of motion.2 - Motion is relative.The universe is rotating relative to what, exactly? Please enlighten me.

Ah - well that's the problem. Linear motion is relative, but rotational motion isn't. It's easy to think that if you're sat on a spinning disc watching everything revolve around you that either the disk could be spinning or the surroundings could be spinning, but that's not true.

If something is spinning there is a centripetal force which is absolutely measurable - the surface of a spinning bucket of water for example will turn into a dish - and you can work out the rotational speed from the outward force. You can't hide or offset that by rotating the world around it.

So the concept of rotation doesn't involve a frame of reference. Several things might be rotating relative to each other but you can always work out an absolute speed for each one.

Come in spinner.

If the universe were 'born' spinning' and given that angular momentum is conserved then it would seem that the pre-initial conditions were dynamic with a plurality of entities against which spin could be measured.When the current iteration of the universe re-collapses and the spin of all entities is added, momentum will overcome gravity and the whole shebang will recommence.Hence the polarity of the universe depends upon two states.The current polarity and the alternate polarity.The initial condition of the pre-universe determined the current polarity and is therefore the mirror opposite.The devil is in the quantum detail, the god is only in our perception.

As others have commented or questioned...and others have tried to explain away. It my understanding that every particle/photon are the center of the universe. It is not a sphere...that's a earth bound three dimensional way of thinking and does not apply to our universe. Just thought I'd add my two cents...

1 - Rotation is a form of motion.2 - Motion is relative.The universe is rotating relative to what, exactly? Please enlighten me.

Glad to see such a logical and obvious question, which would mean there must be a central point. My theory replaces the Big Bang atom-seed-egg with a First Sun. This would naturally be the central point in question.

Everything was "born" from this Sun, including a by-product we call Dark Matter. I refer to it as Pressure Ether. Remember, all Suns in the Universe revolve, so rotation and motion are simply a natural occurrence.

With the Big Bang, it has been stipulated that one cannot see prior to (man-man calculations) 300,000 years of the Big Bang.Very convenient; no view of an explosion. With a First Sun and no explosion, there will be no view simply because it has ceased to exist; purpose finished.

Replacing an explosion of an atom with a First Sun which grew to unimaginable proportions and created new Suns does, in fact, validate a central point from which all rotation began. R.L. Dwyer

The researcher says "If galaxies tend to spin in a certain direction, it means that the overall universe should have a rather large net angular momentum. Since angular momentum is conserved, it seems it [the universe] must have been "born" spinning."

That can be true if he thinks his Universe is a stick; but, it is not. Let us take a stick that consists of 'one atom' diameter- I mean a stick with live atoms. I am sure all these atoms in this stick spin in the same direction (displaying N at one end of the stick and S at the other end). Then, let us bend the stick and join the ends- that becomes a ring. The atoms still spin in the same way they have been- if so, where is the "conserved angular momentum"?

"Universe must have born spinning"? What that mean- the live has motion and the dead has no-motion: as simple as that. Ask: am I moving; the atoms or cells with me are moving; did I born that way-moving, spinning? YES, YES, YES...That's the Mystery!

Yes, I agree you make some good points: E-strings? S-particles? Even if true what makes them spin or move? 'God'- you say. If I am an 'ignorant' I ask where is 'god'? If you have read de Sitter 1916 paper in support of Einstein GR, you will notice de Sitter pleads 'ignorance' as to what is the cause of 'inertia' of the matter or whether there is an invisible-insensible distant-mass responsible for this 'inertia' we observe? In 1932 Chadwick answered that an invisible-insensible 'neutron' exists in hydrogen. But, we still have no clue what this 'neutron' does in an atom other than I must say wrongly assume it as the 'keeper' of proton in atom-nuclie (as if proton is a bad-guy and its needs control...) and made electron, the actor...Do you think- may be- such a 'Neutron' also exist in our universe (I mean the Atom in which we live...)? If so, the 'god' must be within this Neutron... THINK!

'The clusters appear to be moving along a line extending from our solar system toward Centaurus/Hydra, but the direction of this motion is less certain. Evidence indicates that the clusters are headed outward along this path, away from Earth, but the team cannot yet rule out the opposite flow. "We detect motion along this axis, but right now our data cannot state as strongly as we'd like whether the clusters are coming or going," Kashlinsky said.'

The clusters are headed along this path because the Universe is, or the local Universe we exist in is in, a jet. Analogous to the polar jet of a black hole.

The reason for the 'expansion' of the universe is the continual emission of aether into the Universal jet. Three dimensional space associated with the Universe itself is not expanding. What we see in our telescopes is the matter associated with the Universe moving outward and away from the Universal jet emission point. In the image above, '1st Stars' is where aether condenses into matter.

The following is an image analogous of the Universe, or the local Universe, we exist in.

'The clusters appear to be moving along a line extending from our solar system toward Centaurus/Hydra, but the direction of this motion is less certain. Evidence indicates that the clusters are headed outward along this path, away from Earth, but the team cannot yet rule out the opposite flow. "We detect motion along this axis, but right now our data cannot state as strongly as we'd like whether the clusters are coming or going," Kashlinsky said.'

The clusters are headed along this path because the Universe is, or the local Universe we exist in is in, a jet. Analogous to the polar jet of a black hole.

The reason for the 'expansion' of the universe is the continual emission of aether into the Universal jet. Three dimensional space associated with the Universe itself is not expanding. What we see in our telescopes is the matter associated with the Universe moving outward and away from the Universal jet emission point. In the image above, '1st Stars' is where aether condenses into matter.

The following is an image analogous of the Universe, or the local Universe, we exist in.

Dark flow is the aether emitted into and propagating through the Universal jet.

Dark energy is the change in state of the aether emitted into and propagating through the Universal jet.

It's not the Big Bang. It's the Big Ongoing.

Thank you for the NASA reference on "dark flow"- Yes, I agree cold-dark matter flows towards Earth from an invisible-insensible Object and the hot-photons or hot-dark matter flows towards Earth from the Sun. The rest of the cites you gave makes no sense... being the same old fiction.

A galaxy is spinning clockwise or anticlockwise depends on you are looking from the top or from the bottom. How can we tell?

How is this when I just turned my coffee cup clockwise as I looked down at it then ... moved it to where I was looking up at it while it was still turning in the same direction and still saw it going clockwise?